Responsibility
by Sashet
Summary: The Doctor's thoughts about his responsibility to help the Master.  Slight spoilers for The Sound Of Drums.  10th Doctor. Oneshot


**Responsibility**

"He's a Time Lord, which makes him my responsibility.

I'm not here to kill him; I'm here to help him."

I've already killed all the rest of the Time Lords, I can't kill the only other one apart from me….can I?

I stood by and watched my people and my planet burn in a Time War from which only he and I survived. He asked me if I'd felt like a God but I didn't. I didn't feel anything, I couldn't feel anything. What is there to feel when you know you are the architect of the demise of your own civilisation?

He ran from the Time War and left me to face it alone, had I known he was there I would have asked him, begged him if necessary, to help me, to help me save our people. I doubt he would have done so; he hates me more than that, although I think he would have let me beg first, that would have pleased him.

Why do I have to be responsible for him? Why can't I just let Jack kill him?

He will destroy this world and then move on and I can't have the blood of another civilisation on my hands. I can't have the blood of my Time Lord Brother on my hands, we are all we have. I have to help him.

I can't hear the drums in his head but if I could what would they tell me? That we are Gods, the last of the great Time Lords and that the universe is ours to take, ours to rule?

The drums are the rhythm of the power of the Universe and ever since the Master looked into the Untempered Schism and saw that power he has wanted it, all of it. He has spent his whole life trying to achieve the ultimate… to be the most powerful.

I ran from the Schism, I didn't want to see what it held. I was the rebel, the boy who wouldn't conform, the dreamer and the idealist. I ran and I ran and I ran until I ended up here, tired, lonely and now ultimately defeated. The dreams I had are all gone, shattered by the ages, my ideals broken by the powers of evil.

Now I have to take the responsibility that I have run from all my life. I have to help the Master, after all how did he describe me…'the man who makes people better'. I think, although with both my hearts I hope I'm wrong, that this patient might just be the one that the Doctor cannot cure. I can't help a man who doesn't want to be helped.

I've offered myself to him, told him I will fight him if he wants me to, on his terms anywhere he chooses just not here on Earth. I can't have any more blood on my hands, anymore deaths burdening my soul. He chose not to fight me instead he chose to kill, more innocent lives, more guilt for my conscience.

I tried to reason with him, to plead with what little of his true Time Lord soul might be left, but his soul is long gone, replaced by a hunger for power that is greater then even he had expected. He is mad with power, mad with hate, mad with the need to see me suffer and to see me die.

He has turned me into a helpless old man, with a failing body. I cannot fight him like this and he knows it. My mind may still be young and active but trapped in this husk of a body it is as much use as a childs. This is his cruellest action, the worst thing he could have done to me, to make me watch the destruction of Earth, aware of everything and powerless to stop him. These people were my responsibility, it was up to me to stop him and save them and I failed.

He knows the guilt will eat me up inside until I am no more the Doctor just a useless old fool. Maybe then he will be kind and kill me but I don't think so.

He will toy with me until I am completely broken and then he will leave me alive on Earth, doomed forever to watch the results of my failure. Doomed to watch him as he spreads his dominance over the rest of the universe. Doomed to know I could have stopped him and I didn't.

He has begun my torment as he forces me to watch the decimation of the Earth and he gloats in my ear:

"And so it came to pass that the human race fell and the Earth was no more and I looked down upon my new dominion as Master of all and I thought it good."

I wish I could turn away and hide but I force myself to watch. I force myself to look down and to search for the last ray of hope. There has to be hope, he has to be stopped and I can't do it alone. He is still my responsibility, he always was and he always will be. Now I have to give up my selfish quest to help this man and take up the quest to stop him.

Who will help me? Who will share my responsibility with me? Who will take away the burden of his death from my soul?

I watch the Earth burning and dying, falling to its knees at his feet and I'm more scared, more afraid than I have ever been. I let a tear fall and whisper:

"Help me."


End file.
